Tuesday, September 27, 2022

Mom's Job

I recently got back from a thirty mile wilderness backpacking trip with four sons and I realized that the job of mom doesn't really change over time; it's the same job with different details. 

What is that job? Just two things: 1) Organize, and 2) Cheerlead! 

Mom is the organizer. She can't do everything--there's just too much to do. She shouldn't do everything, either, because those four year olds are going to grow up to be adults and need to be trained up to it. Mom needs to organize to make sure it happens; she doesn't have to do it all.

She is the cheerleader. Her kids need to believe that she believes they can do whatever it is she is asking them to do, and even more. Each one will need a different kind of cheerleading and even different kinds at different points in their lives. 

What did that look like when we were hiking on Isle Royale National Park? I was the organizer. Everyone had a load to carry for the sake of everyone else and I was the one who parceled out the loads. What happens when Mom doesn't organize? Everybody suffers! Listen to what happened to us:

We were on our second day out, only one day left. I had divided the food up in two bags, one of which I took down to the beach for us to cook over a campfire. The other was all rolled up tight in a bag and I had left it on the picnic table figuring it was too heavy and a camp fox couldn't smell the food through the bag. Boy, did I figure wrong.When we came back from the beach, we looked everywhere and it was nowhere to be found. The camp fox was stronger than I thought! That left three six foot-plus men, and five foot Noah and me with nothing to eat for our last day of hiking but one chocolate bar, a quarter of a bag of marshmallows, a bag of potato chips and a single summer sausage. They handled it well, but was I embarrassed!

The Cheerleader. Each one of these young men needed a different kind of cheerleader. Mick, who had hiked Isle Royale twice by the age of eighteen, was suddenly, at the age of twenty-nine, surprised to find that it wasn't as easy as it used to be. After the first day of nine miles, he was afraid he would need to turn back. However, it would just mean nine miles back through through the same terrain, would cut off only one third the distance, and the fact was, we couldn't split up. We had only one tent, and one stove. Wherever some of us went, all of us went. I pointed out to Mick that AJ and Jesse wanted to finish what they started (13 year old Noah would go wherever the adults led) and that this was a big undertaking and we should expect some pain; every great undertaking results in it. He went along with us and finished spectacularly. 

AJ, the sixteen year old, was our Beast of the Trail. He led, even taking an extra mile and a half detour before a ten mile day to get a rock from Rainbow Cove for his niece. He was just awesome and I acknowledged it.

Noah, at thirteen, was asked to do what few thirteen year olds are asked to do: hike an average of ten miles a day for three days with twenty pounds on his back. He needed to know that I was impressed with him and that I understood this was a tough thing to do and that it would transform him.

Jesse, my son-in-law, was a different case. He's the macho man, and doesn't take compliments or criticism very well. I got him to leave a few things out of his pack, but he still carried sixty pounds! He got terrible heel blisters on the last eleven mile day and his strides got shorter and shorter. He went from being hot on AJ's heels on day one to being way behind on day three. Except, I kept behind him. It was hard to walk as slowly as he did, but I knew he needed to not be the last person into camp. I wouldn't shame him by having the fifty-seven year old grandmother beat him into camp. 

So Moms, we organize our households, and encourage our children that they can make it to the finish line.That job never changes, it just looks different over the years.


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